Rear Admiral Dennis Velez
Commander, Navy Recruiting Command
Dennis Velez is a native of Adjuntas, Puerto Rico. He graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy with a B.S. in aerospace engineering. He earned a master’s degree in information technology management.
He held a number of positions at sea, including operations officer and air defense officer aboard USS Gettysburg, and as assistant to the deputy commander with the Second Fleet/Striking Fleet Atlantic, commanding officer aboard USS Fitzgerald, and was forward deployed to Yokosuka, Japan. He also commanded USS San Jacinto and was air defense commander for the Eisenhower Strike Group.
He has operational experience in the Pacific, Atlantic, Middle East, Mediterranean, Caribbean, and Southwest Asia theaters. He was an assistant director for Political-Military Affairs, Asia.
More recently, Velez served as senior military assistant to the Secretary of the Navy. He assumed the duties of Commander, Navy Recruiting Command in April 2020.
In the News…
Young Americans are increasingly too overweight or undereducated to join America’s military, according to a growing number of both retired and active-duty military leaders, particularly those charged with recruiting.
A non-partisan organization of nearly 800 retired admirals and generals, known as Mission: Readiness, warned last month that 71 percent of young Americans between the ages of 17 and 24 are ineligible for military service “because they are too poorly educated, too overweight, or have a history of crime or substance abuse.” The group encouraged the acting defense secretary to stand up an advisory committee on military recruitment to “create a long-term strategy to address the biggest disqualifiers for military service.”
Rear Admiral Dennis Velez, the Navy’s Recruiting Commander, said, “It is something that, as a nation, we should continue to work through… to make sure our children are healthier.”
